Visiting Sihanoukville, Cambodia: Beach Paradise Ruined With Garbage

Just want to point out that these beaches are not being destroyed by tourism per se, they are being destroyed by irresponsible tourists and some irresponsible locals. Tourism, and grass-roots development, is helping bring a lot of local people out of poverty, into jobs and education. While lack of local education is clearly a factor, why is it that so many predominantly western, educated tourists think it’s acceptable not to clean up after themselves?

Some local Khmer’s throw rubbish in piles. Other’s (sadly often homeless children) go through the rubbish and sell it on for a pittance. The vast majority of Khmer people are clean and tidy and care about their local habitat. Needless to say, garbage collection is an expense, and burning is often the only viable means of disposal.

And finally, Jayavarnman, Sihanoukville IS a paradise. One must look past the hustlers and whores – who indeed are often in the ’employment’ of both backpackers and the ‘Dad’s Army’. As with anywhere, don’t visit the beaches that are dead in the centre of town if you want pristine sand and water. There is a plethora of people living there long term that outnumber the sex tourists 5 to 1. Sihanoikville is not a glossy resort with ubiquitous sterile hotels dividing up parts of the beach. Thank Buddha. (The day it starts to resemble Benidorm is the day it will cease to be paradise). It’s what I like to call organised chaos – a small price to pay for the freedoms it offers those who visit.

Careful what you wish for. If you want to live in a police state where corporations thrive and independent business suffers, where you need a licence to play your guitar on the street, or pay a hefty mandatory tax for your rubbish to be taken away to an out-of-sight-out-of-mind landfill site, for prostitution to be outlawed and pushed underground increasing exploitation, or have to fill out a planning permission application fee to install a window or a door….stay in the West.

I travelled with my family to Sihanoukville in December 2011….family of 4, stayed at the Coolabah hotel…great spot and one of the owners, Verona is now heavily involved with the Cleanup Sihanoukville project….it is at a grass roots level still but it appears some of the locals are buying into the idea…..the beaches were really clean when we were there, especially Otres….I was in Kuta in Bali a few months ago and there are warnings about swimming at the beach due to sewage issues…hopefully Snookyville doesn’t go down that pathway of greedy development with no thoughts on where to pump the Poo…

With half of my family living in Australia I make the trip from the UK every 2 years and this year thought I would stop off in Cambodia to see Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and and a week of relaxation in Sihanoukville , everything has been wonderful so far until I arrived here in Sihoukville , I wish I had seen this video and the above comments beforehand , it has so much potential however through poor planing/local government it’s a real dump and by advertising it as a backpackers paradise is not doing it any favors because they are not going to bring in the cash to improve the place ! And as for the “Dads Army ” here who camp out here for months spending their pensions on young locals girls – it’s a sight that I certainly don’t want to see !! Just 3 days left… Can’t wait to leave!
Ps .. To all backpackers – when you come into a restaurant please wear some kind of footwear please !!

I moved to Sinville from Galveston Tx and I can assure you that if Galveston County did not clean the beaches on a daily basis it would look exactly the same. When I was in N. California away from any town the beaches look the same. Trash here mainly washes down the creeks into the sea or flows in from other counties, cruise ships etc. It does not come from backpackers – Otres , Sokha, and Independence are cleaner because staff picks it up. Hats off to Danny and the STA for trying to do a thankless dirty job that will be barely a bandaid until the powers that be get involved and throw resources (that at present they don’t have) at the problem. The ocean is the world’s garbage dump it is a world wide problem not just Cambodia’s. Education of locals would of course help but up until a few years ago they didn’t have the plastic and styro containers that they use and throw on the ground when through with their meal.(should have stuck to bannana leaves). Glad you could go hide out in your aircon hotel and not have to deal with reality.

It’s a shame that the human race has resorted to shedding their consumerism and polluting mother nature with discarded flip flops, used condoms, pregnancy tests, broken beer bottles. It breaks my heart that we are so careless, littering our earth is such a thoughtless manner. Too often guide books and glossy magazine depict an idealistic image of a location. Sad to hear your paradise escape took a turn for the worse.

I know, its not the backpackers! The most of them are worried about the garbage and many take on Events for collecting the stuff.
Most of that stuffs comes out from the ocean. It´s a shame to made a blog without a good research. The photo in the link was taken by a westerner who like most of us has concerns about the rubbish and hygiene in this country as unlike you we live here.

You’ll all be happy to know that the western business owners in Sihanoukville formed an association to take matters like this into there own hands. The Sihanoukville Tourist Association or STA has been operating for a month now and for the past week Occheuteal beach and the surrounding areas have been really clean and beautiful. That’s not to say the problems are over. The STA is also concentrating on educating the public and visitors alike on environmental, health and safety issues. The STA has employed 14 full time cleaning staff, had signs and posters made in various languages, raising awareness with other business owners, fund raising and is generally doing an awesome job at tackling this issue. Well done to all involved in making Sihanoukville Beautiful again..

I first came to Sihanoukville in 2005, and quickly decided this is the place for me. I’ve lived her since August, 2006, and have seen a lot of change in the last six and a half years. I’ve read scores of article like this written by people who don’t live here and as usual, have a few issues with this one.
1) I’m not sure why Westerners think this is some kind of paradise. Today, most locals make about $80-$100 a month. There are all day power cuts from the inept electric company, and now we are in a drought so no water either. These two factors came together recently to start a fire that no one was able to put out, as the water company had turned off the water pipes, even those feeding the fire hydrants. I helplessly watched my place of employment and several other places needlessly burn to the ground, ruining the livelihood of many expats and locals alike.
In addition, this area was heavily mined during the Khmer Rogue period. That notorious group used the Independence Hotel as both a headquarters and a kind of pleasure palace for their officers, where they would take “dissenters”, mostly young women, whom would never be heard from again.
2) Regarding the trash problem. Certain other countries have used the seas off of Sihanoukville for years to dispose of their waste, including hazardous medical waste, much of which washes upon the shores here. There has been much building going on near Occheuteal beach over the last several years. Most, if not all, of the land around the are known as Serendipity is owned by one man’s company. He is has been leasing it out to local developers who build there and charge high rent for what they’ve built. The builders, local, hired by locals, typically discard the trash in the easiest and cheapest manner possible, that is by leaving it laying around the building site until the rain washes it away.
I had until recently rented a shop with my Khmer wife, down by the beach. We built living quarters behind the shop and lived there for about a year. The lady pictured in the last photo here was actually our neighbour. The line of shops leading down the road to the beach are the typical shacks. There is not much infrastructure, most of it being built as new shacks were thrown up. It took awhile for the garbage company to show up. Until then, all the locals would simply throw their rubbish out of there back door. After the garbage company showed up, ALL of them continued to do so rather than pay US $0.75 a month for collection. It harbored vermin of all sorts and was a very unhealthy environment. Most of the Khmers that had shacks their also had children. One of them died for reasons as yet undetermined, but I’m sure the unnecessary squalor had something to do with it.
This problem is not limited to Sihanoukville by any means. Last time I was visiting in the country side (where I was the only white face around for a million miles), I was appalled to find that the garbage company didn’t work in that town, and the locals simply threw all of their rubbish in a near by stream, where it would sit for the duration of the dry season until the first monsoons washed away and made it “magically” disappear.
If you walk down Serendipity beach road now, you will see some green bins mounted to the sidewalk. This was an initiative started last Autumn by a group of expat business owners. They bought all the bins, and had the garbage collection company, over much deliberation, agree to pick it up for free. They (the garbage company) have since “accidentally” run over several of these with their trucks.
So when I hear something like “Beach Paradise Ruined” I really have to question the speakers idea of Paradise, and would like to ask them, who has ruined it?

Happy Anniversary to both of you!

It’s so sad to see things like this happening to our environment. I hope things will get better for them in the future. In the mean time, we all need to do our part and also help educate people in ways to better maintain our beautiful world for the future.

Serendipity Beach is definitely in a sad state. I’m kind of glad I hadn’t been before, so I wasn’t able to make any comparisons. Maybe once Cambodia starts to become more like Thailand in terms of tourism in a few years, they’ll start doing beach clean-ups like they do in Thailand. One potential benefit of it becoming more touristy… At least Otres Beach and the islands (Koh Rong, etc.) are still nice…? 🙁

It’s a very common sight all over the beaches in SEA. Even in Korea at the mud festival at the end of the night, there was about a meter wide patch of plastic beer bottles and cups along the sea shore. I asked if someone would clean it up and the policeman said, “Ajjuma, in the morning!” By the time the morning came the tide washed all the disgusting into the sea. It’s pathetic how little thought people put into throwing garbage around.

The worst thing I saw was a ferry attendant empty the garbage bins right into the ocean in Malaysia. Our poor planet.

Thanks for bringing this sort of thing to the public’s attention. Idea, though: How about harnessing the tens of thousands of Twitter followers you’ve got to come down to the beach for a day or two and clean things up? You could probably partner with hostels in the area, tell your followers to tell their followers, set a date, give it its own Facebook page or whatever, and videotape the whole thing with before and after photos. There must be a few dozen people in Thailand this time of year that have read this post already and would love to help out, so why not throw a party?